The Weight of Glory: A House of Gold Text: 1 Kings 6:14-22
Introduction: Heaven on Earth
We live in a disposable age. We build with particle board and vinyl siding, materials that confess their own fleeting nature. Our architecture reflects our theology, or lack thereof. We build for the moment because we have largely forgotten eternity. But the text before us today is from a different world entirely. It is a description of a building project that was anything but disposable. It was a house built for the ages, a house built for God Himself. Solomon's Temple was not merely a functional meeting place; it was a sermon in stone and wood and gold. It was a microcosm of the cosmos, a scale model of Heaven, and a tangible promise of God's intention to dwell with His people.
The modern evangelical mind, particularly the American evangelical mind, is often uncomfortable with this kind of thing. We are suspicious of liturgy, of symbolism, of physical grandeur in worship. We pride ourselves on being simple, informal, and "authentic," which often translates to being shoddy, ill-considered, and man-centered. We have traded the weight of glory for the lightness of a TED Talk. We think that God is somehow more honored by a PowerPoint slide than by a cedar-paneled wall overlaid with pure gold. But the Scriptures will not have it. God is a God of beauty, of order, of lavish and extravagant glory. He is the one who invented gold. He is the one who commanded that this house be built, and He specified its materials with painstaking care.
As we walk through this detailed description of the Temple's interior, we must resist the temptation to let our eyes glaze over. This is not just an ancient construction manifest. This is theology made visible. Every detail is shouting, proclaiming the character of the God who would dwell there. The sheer expense, the meticulous craftsmanship, the overwhelming glory of the place was meant to teach Israel something essential about their God, and by extension, about themselves as His covenant people. And it is meant to teach us something as well, for this Temple is a shadow, and the substance is Christ and His Church.
The Text
So Solomon built the house and completed it. Then he built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the ceiling he overlaid the walls on the inside with wood, and he overlaid the floor of the house with boards of cypress. And he built twenty cubits on the rear part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling; he built them for it on the inside as an inner sanctuary, as the Holy of Holies. And the house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long. And there was cedar on the house within, carved in the shape of gourds and open flowers; all was cedar, there was no stone seen. Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh. Now the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits in length, twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in height, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar with cedar. So Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold. And he drew chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold. So he overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished. Also the whole altar which was by the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.
(1 Kings 6:14-22 LSB)
Covering the Curse (v. 14-15)
We begin with the completion of the basic structure and the interior paneling.
"So Solomon built the house and completed it. Then he built the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the ceiling he overlaid the walls on the inside with wood, and he overlaid the floor of the house with boards of cypress." (1 Kings 6:14-15)
The first thing to notice is the comprehensive nature of the work. Solomon "completed it." This was a finished work, a total project. But the crucial detail is what happens on the inside. The walls are built with stone, but on the inside, they are completely covered with wood. Verse 18 will make this explicit: "there was no stone seen." Why is this important? Stone is the stuff of the curse. When God cursed the ground for Adam's sake, He cursed it to bring forth thorns and thistles, but the fundamental curse was one of hard, toilsome labor with the very dust and rock of the earth. The law of God was written on tablets of stone, signifying its cold, hard, and unyielding demands that bring death. In the Temple, the place where God meets with man, the stone is hidden. The curse is covered.
The inside of God's house is a wooden world. It is lined with cedar and cypress, trees of life. This is a picture of Eden restored. It is a return to the garden. The harshness of the fallen world is shut out, and inside, one is surrounded by the fragrant, living warmth of wood. The cedar, known for its beauty, fragrance, and resistance to decay, speaks of the incorruptible life of Heaven. The cypress on the floor means that the very ground they walked on was transformed. To enter the Temple was to enter a new creation, a place where the curse was reversed and covered over by the promise of life.
The Heart of Holiness (v. 16-18)
Next, the text focuses on the division of the space, creating the most sacred place on earth.
"And he built twenty cubits on the rear part of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the ceiling; he built them for it on the inside as an inner sanctuary, as the Holy of Holies. And the house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long. And there was cedar on the house within, carved in the shape of gourds and open flowers; all was cedar, there was no stone seen." (1 Kings 6:16-18)
The interior is divided into two rooms. The main room, the nave or the Holy Place, was forty cubits long. But at the very back, a smaller room, twenty cubits long, was partitioned off. This was the "inner sanctuary," the Holy of Holies. This was the epicenter of God's manifest presence on earth. The entire structure was oriented toward this one room. All worship, all sacrifice, all of Israel's life was directed toward this sacred space where Heaven and earth met.
The principle here is one of graduated holiness. Not all space is the same. There are degrees of sanctity. The world is different from the promised land. The land is different from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is different from the Temple mount. The Temple mount is different from the Temple building. The Temple building is different from the Holy of Holies. This drives our modern egalitarian sensibilities crazy, but it is fundamental to a biblical worldview. God creates by making distinctions, and holiness requires separation. The Holy of Holies was the most separate, most distinguished, most holy place in the world.
And what decorated this new Eden? The cedar was carved with "gourds and open flowers." This is garden imagery. It reinforces the theme of a new creation. This is not a sterile, abstract holiness. It is a living, fruitful, beautiful holiness. God's presence brings life, and the very walls of His house were made to blossom. And again, the text emphasizes, "all was cedar, there was no stone seen." The reminder of the curse, the symbol of death, was completely hidden from view inside the house of the living God.
The Throne Room of God (v. 19-20)
Now we come to the purpose and furnishing of this innermost room.
"Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh. Now the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits in length, twenty cubits in width, and twenty cubits in height, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar with cedar." (1 Kings 6:19-20)
The entire purpose of the Holy of Holies was to house one object: "the ark of the covenant of Yahweh." The ark was the footstool of God's throne. It contained the tablets of the law, a pot of manna, and Aaron's rod that budded. It was the tangible symbol of God's covenant presence with His people. This whole glorious, magnificent, astronomically expensive building was constructed to be a jewel box for the covenant.
The dimensions of this room are significant. It was a perfect cube: twenty by twenty by twenty cubits. In Scripture, this shape represents perfection and completeness. The only other place in the Bible where we find a perfect cube of this magnitude is the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation (Rev. 21:16). Solomon's Holy of Holies was a miniature model of the eternal city, the ultimate dwelling place of God with His people. It was a foretaste of the final state.
And then comes the gold. The entire room, a cube roughly thirty feet in each direction, was overlaid with "pure gold." This is an almost incomprehensible level of extravagance. Gold in Scripture represents divinity, purity, and glory. To step into this room would be to be overwhelmed by the reflected glory of God. It was a room that shone. It was a physical manifestation of the divine nature. The altar mentioned here is likely the altar of incense, which stood just outside the Holy of Holies, and its connection to this most holy place is emphasized by its being overlaid as well. Its fragrant smoke, representing the prayers of the saints, would ascend before the very throne of God.
A World of Gold (v. 21-22)
The passage concludes by emphasizing the totality of this golden glory.
"So Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold. And he drew chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary, and he overlaid it with gold. So he overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished. Also the whole altar which was by the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold." (1 Kings 6:21-22)
The gold was not limited to the Holy of Holies. The entire interior of the house was overlaid with pure gold. The walls, the floor, everything. The chains of gold across the front of the inner sanctuary served as a final, glorious barrier, separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. The repetition is emphatic: "he overlaid it with gold... he overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished."
What is the point of all this? It is to teach us the sheer, unmitigated, glorious otherness of God. His holiness is not like our holiness. His glory is not like our glory. He is infinitely valuable, infinitely pure, infinitely beautiful. To come into His house was to be confronted with a value system that turns the world on its head. In God's economy, the most precious things we have are lavished on His worship. This is not waste; it is right worship. It is acknowledging worth. The woman who broke the alabaster flask of expensive ointment to anoint Jesus understood this principle. The disciples called it waste. Jesus called it a beautiful thing.
The Temple Made Without Hands
As glorious as this Temple was, it was a temporary structure. It was a shadow pointing to a greater reality. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is the great high priest of a "greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation" (Heb. 9:11). Jesus Himself, speaking of His own body, said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). Jesus Christ is the true Temple. In Him, God dwells with man perfectly. In Him, the fullness of deity dwells bodily (Col. 2:9).
The Holy of Holies was a perfect cube, overlaid with pure gold, and it was where God's presence dwelt. And what is the Christian? We are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19). God has taken up residence not in a building of wood and stone, but in the hearts of His people. The glory that filled Solomon's temple was a precursor to the glory of the Spirit that now fills the Church.
And the Church, collectively, is being built into a new Temple. Peter says that we, as "living stones," are being "built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5). The curse of stone is reversed in us. We are quarried from the pit of the fall, but by grace, we are made living. All the gold, all the cedar, all the carvings of flowers were pointing to the glory of Christ in His people. The fragrance of the cedar is the aroma of Christ. The incorruptibility of the gold is the eternal life He gives us. The blossoming flowers are the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
When the high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year, he went through a veil. At the moment of Christ's death, that veil in the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom (Matt. 27:51). The way into the true Holy of Holies, into the very presence of God, was thrown open. The gold chains were broken. We no longer need a building in Jerusalem to meet with God. Through the blood of Jesus, we have "confidence to enter the holy places" (Heb. 10:19). The overwhelming glory described in this chapter is now our inheritance in Christ. We are being built into a house for God, a New Jerusalem descending from Heaven, a bride adorned for her husband, a city of pure gold, like clear glass. Let us therefore live as what we are: temples of the living God, houses of glory.